CONFERENCE

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SMARTPHONE & TABLET GAMES

Monday, March 2 & Tuesday, March 3

The Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit at GDC brings together top game developers from around the world to share ideas, discuss best practices, and consider the future of gaming on mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, Amazon, and more. This two day program will focus on the nuts and bolts of great game design and successful business strategies specifically tailored to popular smartphones & tablets.

2015 HIGHLIGHTED SESSIONS

Designing for Mobile VR in Dead Secret

Chris Pruett (Robot Invader/ Oculus)

Mobile VR, like desktop VR, comes with a set of unique design challenges. The playing field is wide open when it comes to designing VR-centric gameplay systems, but the stakes are high: poorly implemented designs often result in the player feeling sick. Good VR also requires competent 3D graphics running at a rock solid frame rate. Building an interesting and convincing virtual space on mobile hardware is a tricky proposition. In the summer of 2014, Robot Invader decided to rebuild its current project, a moody murder mystery called Dead Secret, as a mobile VR game. Originally designed for tablets, the title was rebuilt from the ground up to accommodate mobile VR. From the pacing to the interface, the sound system to the monetization plan, everything changed. After months of work, Dead Secret is not only playable on mobile VR platforms, it's a much better game.

The Making of Lexica: A Truly Massive Tablet Game

Jesse Schell (Schell Games LLC)

Lexica, a 3D RPG designed to get middle school students to read more, is arguably the largest tablet game ever created. In this talk, Jesse Schell describes the lessons learned in creating this system of connected Unity 3D games for the iOS platform, including tips for getting the most performance out of Unity on iOS, what Apple will and will not allow when it comes to interconnected apps, and the unique method of game installation and delivery directly to schools.

SMARTPHONE & TABLET GAMES SUMMIT ADVISORY COMMITTEE

David Kalina

Tiger Style

David Kalina is the co-owner and principal engineer at Tiger Style, the independent development studio behind critically acclaimed indie hits Waking Mars and Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor. David spent his formative years developing AI systems for big-budget console games (Splinter Cell, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows) before teaming up with fellow industry veteran Randy Smith to form Tiger Style. David and the Tiger Style team are currently hard at work on Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon, which will be released in early 2015.

Chris Pruett

Robot Invader

By day Chris runs Robot Invader, makers of mechanical devices of destruction and video games. His most recent work includes Rise of the Blobs and Wind-Up Knight. An Android team alum, Chris worked on games at Google in the US and Japan. He also spent several years in the console game industry as an engineer and shipped ten titles for various platforms. Under the cover of night, he maintains a research blog devoted to the dissection and analysis of horror games. Chris lives with his wife and two children in Menlo Park, California.

Caryl Shaw

Telltale Games

Caryl Shaw is currently an executive producer at Telltale Games in San Rafael, California, focused on online and web features for upcoming Telltale games like Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones.

Prior to Telltale, Caryl was the Founder of Tower of Robots Consulting in San Francisco, California providing production and project management services to both game and app developers. During the rise of mobile gaming, Caryl was an executive producer at KIXEYE and ngmoco:) where she was responsible for building and managing iPhone and iPad applications as fun and profitable games and services. And earlier in her video games career, Caryl was a senior producer at EA/Maxis and worked on The Sims, SimCity and Spore franchises as the lead online producer.

She's spoken internationally about a range of topics including: Running a Live Mobile Game, Lessons Learned Making a Social Game for Facebook and Putting User-Generated Content to Work in Video Games.

SPONSORS

Platinum Smartphone & Tablet Summit Sponsor
AdColony is a mobile video advertising platform whose proprietary Instant-Play™ technology serves crystal-clear, razor sharp video ads instantly in HD across an extensive network of iOS and Android apps, eliminating the biggest pain points in mobile video advertising: long load times and grainy, choppy video. As the leading mobile video monetization and user acquisition platform, AdColony works with both Fortune 500 brands and more than 70% the world’s top grossing app publishers. We're looking forward to meeting with you at the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit! To download our SDK and learn more, visit www.adcolony.com.

Platinum Smartphone & Tablet Summit Sponsor
Chillingo, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, is a leading mobile games publisher with numerous award-winning hits around the world including Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Feed Me Oil, Parking Mania, and Iron Force. The company publishes games for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, Steam, and other digital platforms.

Smartphone & Tablet Summit Table Top Sponsor
Amplitude is analytics you’ll love, even after your app takes off. We answer your questions to help you drive revenue and engagement, and offer Behavioral Cohorting and direct SQL/Redshift queries. Stop by for a demo and see why so many ex-Zynga game devs are using us for analytics!

Smartphone & Tablet Summit Table Top Sponsor
Pollen gives app developers faster access to their earned revenues, paying out for app store sales within 7 days. Your funds can be channeled back into user acquisition immediately, meaning your app or game is funding its own user growth, and you are less reliant on self-funding or venture capital.

Smartphone & Tablet Summit Table Top Sponsor
Digital Dream Forge is an independent QA studio located in Scottsdale, Arizona. We provide testing services on mobile platforms for developers and publishers. With years of QA experience and a commitment to building the strongest QA teams in the business, we bring the highest level of service to every project.

Gold Smartphone & Tablet Summit Sponsor
LiveRail, a Facebook company, is a leading publisher monetization platform for video, delivering more than 10 billion impressions monthly. Our technology empowers premium publishers to sell their video inventory smartly and safely, across devices. Founded in 2007, LiveRail is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., with offices in New York and London.

Gold Smartphone & Tablet Summit Sponsor
ARM designs scalable, energy-efficient processors and related technologies to deliver advanced user experiences with high quality visuals across multiple screens for a broad range of mobile and consumer devices. Our innovative technology, including ARM Cortex® processors and ARM Mali™ GPUs, powers (is behind) over 95% of all mobile devices in the world and is licensed by ARM Partners who have shipped more than 50 billion Systems on Chip (SoCs) containing our intellectual property since the company began in 1990. Together with our Connected Community, we are breaking down barriers to innovation for developers, designers and engineers, ensuring a fast, reliable route to market for leading electronics companies.

Smartphone & Tablet Summit Mixer Sponsor
WB Games mobile teams are changing the mobile gaming landscape with top brands, powerful studio support and the brightest creative and business talent in the industry. Mobile games are a key priority for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, with teams in San Francisco, Burbank, Chicago, Boston and the UK.